Six victories in a row, one conceded goal, tactical revolution: why Lokomotiv under Nikolic is not worse than under Syomin

Winning streak

The end of 2020 turned out to be extremely unfortunate for Lokomotiv.

The railroad workers not only took the last place in the Champions League group, although they drew twice with Atlético, but also suffered two defeats in a row in the RPL and dropped to ninth place in the standings.

The defeat in Krasnodar turned out to be especially painful - 0: 5.

At that time, it seemed that Marko Nikolic was not destined to finalize the season, especially since the club changed its leadership, and Vasily Kiknadze, who invited the Serb, left the post of general director.

However, after the winter break, the team literally changed.

In the Russian championship, she won five victories in a row with a total score of 11: 1 and came close to the Champions League zone.

At the same time, the red-greens scored points not only in the match with teams inferior in the class (Arsenal - 3: 0, Ufa - 1: 0, Rotor - 2: 0), but also turned out to be stronger than direct competitors (CSKA - 2: 0 and Sochi - 3: 1).

Also, the current RPL silver medalist made his way to the quarterfinals of the National Cup, defeating Tambov (3: 0).

First of all, the fans should thank the coach for these successes, who did an excellent job at the training camp.

The main thing is that his charges are perfectly physically ready.

This was noticeable even in the February meeting with the army team, in which they simply ran over the opponent, especially in the first half.

But if in the second half of this game “Loko” gave up the initiative to CSKA and almost missed it, in others, on the contrary, it found additional resources in itself and squeezed the opponents.

The railroad workers hit Arsenal's goal three times after the 70th minute, and Ufa scored the winning goal on the 80th.

And they also scored against Rotor and Sochi in the end.

Nikolic's replacements also work regularly.

So, Fedor Smolov scored twice after leaving the bench.

And Eder in Ufa and Vitaly Lisakovich in Volgograd were marked with assists, barely appearing on the field.

Bold tactical decisions

However, if the team could only boast of excellent functional readiness, this would not have caused such admiration among fans and experts.

The coaching staff also went for serious tactical rebuilding, and all the ideas, oddly enough, worked.

First of all, Nikolic in the center of the field rebuilt the game into his favorite rhombus.

And even the absence of Dmitry Barinov and Anton Miranchuk did not prevent him from doing it quite successfully.

In the absence of the latter, the Serb decided to use right winger Rifat Zhemaletdinov in the top ten position.

This rebuilding initially looked rather risky, but in the end it fully justified itself.

The midfielder has shown that, in addition to good technique and speed, he is capable of delivering accurate, timely passes.

As a result, after the season resumed, the footballer scored six points for performance (2 + 4), and scored an assistant hat-trick in the match against Sochi.

Now it will be extremely difficult to oust him from the base even for Miranchuk.

Also Nikolic was not afraid from the first matches to entrust the place at the base to 19-year-old pupil of the club academy Maxim Mukhin.

It was he, and not Grzegorz Krychowiak or Daniil Kulikov, who took the extremely important place of the defensive player.

Despite his age, the young footballer does his job perfectly.

He is by far the best on the team in terms of average tackles per game (4.1) and second in terms of steals (2.1).

In appearance, a rather slender young man performs a huge amount of rough work and unties the hands of a couple of insiders.

Mukhin's progress was noticed even in the main team of the country.

Stanislav Cherchesov not only called the defensive player to the training camp, but also released him as a substitute at the end of the hardest game with Slovenia.

In turn, Krykhovyak only benefited from the transfer to the G8 position.

At first, under Nikolic, the Pole, who focused on destruction, practically stopped scoring.

However, after the resumption of the season, this problem was resolved.

Grzegorz scored four goals and gave one assist.

Now the legionnaire with seven accurate strikes, together with Miranchuk, tied for the first place in the team scorers race of the current season.

The new Loko scheme has proven itself so well that even Cherchesov decided to use it.

The Russian national team played matches with Slovenia and Slovakia with a diamond in the middle of the field, and Zhemaletdinov was in the top ten, as well as in the club, and not, for example, Alexei Miranchuk playing in Serie A.

Reliable defensive play

Nikolic's other experiments were also successful.

So, after the injury of experienced Vladislav Ignatiev, he entrusted the place on the right flank of the defense not to Dmitry Zhivoglyadov, but to the nominal flank striker Dmitry Rybchinsky.

As a result, the coaching staff got a rather tenacious and efficient player in this position, who is always ready to support the attack.

True, sometimes he has to be insured, but Vedran Chorluka, or Mukhin, copes with this task.

Finally, the Serb transferred François Camano to the position of a striker and immediately got the result.

The Guinean, who felt extremely uncomfortable on the left edge, literally opened up in the attack.

The legionnaire scored against Tambov in the Cup, scored a double in the most important RPL match with Sochi and gave an assist to Krykhovyak in the derby with CSKA.

If the African took some time to adapt, then Pablo immediately became the most important link in the team.

He quickly established interaction with Corluka and demonstrates the game at the level of the best central defenders of the RPL.

On average, the Brazilian wins 2.3 riding martial arts per match and makes 3.5 interceptions.

According to this indicator, he is the best in Lokomotiv.

Moreover, it is through Pablo that most of the railroad attacks begin.

On average, he makes 70.3 assists per game - more than any of the partners, 87.2% of them are accurate.

As a result, Nikolic's charges practically stopped conceding against the Latin American in defense.

In six matches in all tournaments, the opponents hit the gates of the Muscovites only once.

Sochi managed to do it.

Another indicative moment: after the resumption of the season, Marinato Guilherme had to make more than two saves in only one match of the championship.

In the derby with CSKA, he helped out partners six times.

The most naturalized Brazilian, the reliability of Pablo and Corluca helped regain self-confidence, which was lost after mistakes at the end of 2020 and the defeat in the Russian national team in Serbia.

In the new year, Guilherme has five dry meetings.

This helped him to come out on top in this indicator in the current RPL season (11 games).

It is important to note that not only the goalkeeper, but the whole Lokomotiv regained self-confidence.

The team could not but be affected by the war between the fans and Kiknadze, during which the club was practically left without support.

The reshuffle in leadership positions finally calmed the situation and allowed the fans, as well as the footballers, to focus on the game again.

True, the railway workers' calendar is extremely difficult.

In the remaining six rounds, they have yet to host Spartak, Rostov and Dynamo, and also face off against Zenit on the road.

And only in the matches against Tambov and Ural should the red-greens score six points.

For comparison, besides Loko, St. Petersburgers will only meet with Krasnodar, which is experiencing serious problems, and Sochi, which the team from the Northern Capital regularly beats.

Apart from the confrontations with Rostov and the railroad, Spartak will only have a derby with CSKA, while the rest of the rivals are quite capable of being red-and-white.

In addition, Nikolic's charges will face the hardest quarterfinal match of the Russian Cup against Sochi on April 7.

However, it is not excluded that even not the simplest calendar will not prevent the courageous and perfectly ready Muscovites from joining the fight for the championship.

It is curious that last season Lokomotiv after 24 rounds had 47 points to its credit, while in the current season - 43. And the year before last, when the team was still led by Yuri Semin, - the same 43. the background of performances in the Champions League also experienced problems.

But the very first full-fledged training camp helped the Serb to solve them and bring the wards to a new level.